The English, undeniably, are in many ways an ungastronomic people, yet when we reflect that they have given to the world the best butcher's meats--mutton and pork, as well as beef--their claim to rank high among gastronomic nations is established. Think of the important rôle butcher's meat plays in our dietary!
It was not by a mere accident that Great Britain won supremacy in this line, but in consequence of the application of principles of scientific breeding, resembling those to which the Californian, Luther Burbank, owed his startling successes in creating new fruits and vegetables of superior size, tenderness, and Flavor.
It took the combined efforts of several English "Burbanks" to create the ideal mutton chops and joints. The two who deserve the lion's share of praise were Robert Bakewell and John Ellman.
Bakewell came first. Before his day, the fleece was the thing sheep growers were mainly interested in. They wanted as big animals and as much wool as possible.
Bakewell was not interested in wool. What he was after was an improved mutton-producing breed--or rather one which, besides meat, yielded a large amount of fat. That was what the market of his day demanded, in consequence of the way in which mutton was served. The usual practice, we read, "was to put a large joint of fat mutton over a dish of potatoes at the workman's table. The meat went to the head of the family; the potatoes, saturated with the meat and gravy, making a savory meal for the junior members. Thousands in the manufacturing and mining districts were for many years brought up in this way, so that, in breeding fat sheep, Bakewell had a better warrant than would apply in the present day, when fat is obtained in more palatable and digestible form in butter and its cheaper imitations, and when the working classes, as well as others, prefer to have lean and juicy mutton."
An anecdote in Pitt's "General Survey of the Agriculture of Leicester" (1809) throws further light on the situation: "Your mutton is so fat that I cannot eat it," said a gentleman to Bakewell, who replied: "I do not breed mutton for gentlemen, but for the public; and even my mutton may be kept leaner to suit every palate by stocking harder in proportion and by killing the sheep in time."